


the cracks that stick

by saunatonttu



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Mild Support Spoilers, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 01:15:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu
Summary: His father had always clung to the dead like a fool, but what did that make Felix, who clung to someone that might as well be dead?





	the cracks that stick

In truth, he could have asked to be transferred to one of the other houses. It wasn’t exactly groundbreaking for students to transfer from one house to another, even if the houses were meant to represent their students’ origins. And knowing the boar, he wouldn’t have been offended.

Felix could have used that way out, and he would’ve gained an interesting teacher while nothing of value would’ve been lost.

Really.

So the question remained – why _hadn’t_ he done that? Why did he stick with the house with a leader that made him sick to his gut? Why _didn’t_ he just abandon the class and find somewhere else to be without having to look at the boar’s face every day?

The obvious answer would be that he wasn’t a coward. Leaving Blue Lions just to avoid that beast? Now that would be the act of a coward. Felix could almost fool himself into believing that this was the reason – the _only_ reason – he stayed with the Blue Lions for. Ingrid and Sylvain would certainly confirm that his stubbornness worked that way.

But even Felix wasn’t so apt at lying to himself that he could pretend there weren’t other reasons beneath it all. Reasons that sometimes kept him up as much as the Duscur tragedy did the boar.

The way his true colours had shone through on that day during that minor rebellion – after reflecting on it many times afterwards, Felix could not deny himself that the signs had been present well before the boar had soaked himself in blood.

Felix hated thinking about it. He hated remembering the way the boar had grown paler the more they had seen of the destruction the rebels had caused – the way the boar flinched and whispered about a headache that just would not cease as the rebellion threatened to escalate.

What had pushed the boar over the edge, Felix would never know. But something _had_, and Felix knew it with as much certainty as he knew that nothing could bring Glenn back from the dead.

And once over the edge, there was no going back. The bridge the boar had crossed… Felix would not cross it with him, although… a part of him hoped that the boar would turn around and come back if Felix just screamed loud enough, prodded him hard enough to make him want to return from the brink of his fragile madness.

The boar hadn’t so much as responded so far. He only wore a tired smile at Felix’s sharp-tongued retorts and hung his head with a troubled look on his face the one time Felix brought up the rebellion they were sent to suppress. It was like yelling into the void: a friendly-faced one, but a void nevertheless. Results only made Felix angrier and antsier, as if thousand needles were prickling just below his skin.

Watching him angered Felix, and yet his feet remained firmly in their classroom and in the dorm room just beside the boar’s.

Sometimes, he woke up to hear a loud thump from the side where the boar’s room was. Sometimes, but much more rarely, he thought he even heard a choked sob. Those times were the hardest, because Felix found himself wanting to go knock on the adjacent room’s door and tell the boar to get the hell up towards the training grounds for a spar.

Instead he waited until he heard the boar’s door open and shut on its own before turning to his side and closing his eyes despite the tension in his limbs.

_I suppose the Dimitri I once knew died in the slaughter of Duscur along with my brother_, he had told the boar with all the bitterness in the world on his tongue. It was a sentiment that rang too true – and yet, Felix couldn’t find it in himself to sever the tie connecting them, no matter how twisted and malformed it had become.

His father had always clung to the dead like a fool, but what did that make Felix, who clung to someone that might as well be dead?

Perhaps the foolishness truly did run in the family line.


End file.
